The Children are All Right
by OnceMoreAndAgain
Summary: Families are universally weird. Bonds are always complicated. But theirs are a little weirder and far more complicated than most.


**AN: Its been a month, took down the spoiler bit. If I just spoiled EVERYTHING in the game for you, TOUGH. LUCK.**

Fire Emblem does not belong to me. Seriously if I could write like those guys do you think I'd be writing fanfic?

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._So essentially I was wondering at the end of the game. What the hell are they going to name their kids, since the BadFuture gang are kind of living in the same universe as them now? Like, only one of them is kind of existing at the same time - and kinda hard to change the name now...but the others haven't even been conceived yet (I'm assuming...) and what the hell will PresentGeneration kids think? So yeah. This is kinda word/idea vomit with that as a basis._

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Lucina does not know who the woman who shares her name is. The Other Lucina's yearly visits to Castle Ylissewith the Other Morgan are few in number, but both Father and Mother are happy to see them. The woman they named her after was something of a hero to her when she was little. She was tall, beautiful, kind and strong and Lucina hoped to be like her when she was all grown up.

The Other Lucina carried the same sword as Father, and when the two sparred as they always did on her visits, Lucina can tell that they fight with the same style that Father is slowly teaching her. The Other Lucina is so much like Father that there are times that she is jealous of the older woman. Both she and the Other Morgan look like him too - but Father has no brothers and Lucina only has two aunts - or three. Aversa was Mother's sister - sort of.

Mother had gotten a very odd look on her face, halfway between a laugh and a grimace when Lucina had expressed her concern about the time her father spent with the blue-haired woman who was _not _her mother and dissatisfaction with Mother's evasive answers about the Other Lucina and the strangeness of House Ylisse.

"It's complicated sweetheart." Mother sighed, and the way her mother put down the quill she had been using to mark up a map and pushed her long blue-grey hair behind her ear with ink-stained fingers Lucina recognized this being the prelude to a story and an explanation.

Or it would have been had Morgan not come running in with his latest 'acquisitions' from his adventuring with the 'Justice Cabal' and tripping over the too big for him long dark coat he had taken to wearing in imitation of Mother and releasing the hundreds of beetles and insects he had caught into her study.

Not wanting to witness the scolding her baby brother was going to get - which would surely turn into one of Morgan's treasured strategy sessions with Mother - Lucina sought out her absolute favourite person in the castle.

"Father!" She called out happily as she stepped into the ruler of Ylisse's office, two practice swords held firmly behind her back.

"Why if it isn't little Lucina!" A familiar booming voice echoed throughout the room. "Ready to be Champion of West Ferox?"

"Khan Basilio. It is good to see you." Lucina said politely, as a smile grew on her face. She liked the Khans of Ragna Ferox, though she wondered why Khan Basilio always asked for her to fight for him in the Tournaments when she was older. He also said he'd get her a mask too - though she didn't know why that was so important.

"Basilio," Father sighed, resting his large hand against the huge man's dark heavily muscled shoulder. "I already have to deal with Plegia _and _Ferox's rulers wanting my wife's brains and now you want my daughter's sword hand?"

Lucina giggled at the mock-threatening look on her Father's face.

"Do I need to go and get Falchion Basilio?"

"It's only fair," Basilio laughed, completely at ease and utterly unafraid of the man who had saved the world. "Flavia keeps roping you into being her champion, and Lon'qu is busy being a father. Someone needs to knock that woman off of the throne!"

Lucina watched her Father speak with the Khan for a little longer before the big brown man left, laughing his head off, and Father sighing and scratching his head tiredly.

"Yes Lucina?" he said with that special secret smile that he always had whenever he said her name, and she held out the practice swords.

He laughed and ruffled her hair and Lucina smiled.

.

.

It had never occurred to any of them really about what it looked like to those who did not know. Not many of them realized what it looked like to the children in _this _timeline and none of their parents had thought to explain - except for Miriel who had decided to approach the whole topic with the two Laurents as a study into the nature and fabric of magic and reality - her poor husband left utterly baffled by what was like having _three _Miriels in one household when the Older Laurent stopped by to visit.

The children all come up with their own ideas - Owain and Cynthia of the Justice Cabal are closest to the actual truth, but the other children, Severa most especially and Lucina included dismissed the idea of heroes from another dimension who travelled across time and were in fact alternate futures of themselves as too far-fetched and ridiculous.

Gerome did not care. Minervykins liked the Other Gerome and considered him family, and the Other Minerva liked him and let him ride her alone whenever mother takes him to visit Wyvern Valley - and since Minerva considered him family, the Other Gerome was family, the hows and specifics are irrelevant.

Brady spent most of his time in the infirmary with Noire and both of them were preoccupied with the reasons why they were in there (their mothers in indirect or direct cases) to put much thought into who the Other Noire and Other Brady were - besides absolutely terrifying.

Nah was simply happy there was another half-blooded manakete to speak with - though she blamed the Other Nah for giving her mother the idea for her gods-awful name and wondered what in Naga's name was the Other Nah's mother thinking.

Severa did not know why her parents named her after the Other Severa - who was horrible and rude to her mother most of the time and always _always _hanging on to Daddy whenever she came to visit - she was an aunt or cousin or something but Severa was mostly sure that she did not _like _the legendary mercenary and _no she did not admire her at all. Not one bit. _

Kjelle was proud to have been named after someone as strong as the Other Kjelle and tried to copy her in everything. She wanted to live up to the name her mother had given her. It was also a consolation to know that she was not the only one who could not ride a horse.

Yarne did not know what was going through his parents' heads when they decided to give him the _same name _as the only other male taguel in the world. It would be downright confusing - if the Other Yarne was not easily identified as the big scaredy-rabbit, which Yarne was pleased to say he was not - mostly.

Inigo was merely happy to know that wanting to be a male dancer did not make him weird or disgusting. Though his mother and father do tell him that he should not strive to copy _everything _the Other Inigo does. Famous mercenary, dancer, problem solver the man may be, but Inigo is to never _ever _become as terrible of a serial flirt the Other Inigo is.

Morgan does not particularly care for the Other Morgan, mostly because he does not like having to share his Mother with the older boy. She assured him however that she loved him, Lucina, the Other Lucina and the Other Morgan all the same and she would give her life for them again to keep them safe if she had to. Which to that Morgan had said that he never wanted Mother to leave and he couldn't live without her. And that he'd hide ALL of her books somewhere she would NEVER find them if she did.

Lucina did not want to try and make sense of the verbose babble that came out of Morgan's four-year old mouth. Though he could be counted on to remember absolutely everything that came out of Mother's mouth word for word including the tone and inflection she used, he often confused himself and tripped over his own words as easily as his feet.

"Oh hey there. What are you two doing out here so late?" the Other Morgan - who looked so much like _her _Morgan but wasn't the same, because he was older, taller and stronger beneath that black cloak that was so much like Mother's. He looked like her too.

Lucina was always said to take after her Father, and she was proud of that. There was never any doubt as to who her father was. She was King Chrom's daughter, Princess of Ylisse and she wore that title proudly. She really really did - but there was so little of Mother in her features, where both Morgans had so much, having only the same shade of dark blue hair as her father did.

"Fireflies," Morgan chirped, while Lucina looked to the wooden practice sword in her hands that she had been swinging.

"What brings you to Castle Ylisse?" Lucina asked politely. "Father said you were traveling."

The Other Morgan smiled, a similar expression crossing Morgan's face as well.

"It's Mother's birthday tomorrow. I can't _not _visit."

"Why do you call her that?" Lucina blurted out a question that had been bouncing around her head for years and years once she realized how odd this situation was. "I don't understand. I know they found you in the war, but why do you call her Mother?"

The Other Morgan stared at her for a minute before crouching down before her.

"Because she _is _my Mother. I don't remember much before they found me in those ruins. But I remember her."

Lucina's face screwed up into a frown. "That makes no sense. You're older than me, but _I'm _the oldest..." An absolutely terrible and awful thought occurs to young Lucina. "Father is the only man Mother loves!

The Other Morgan looked confused.

"Well duh. Of course he is..." He paused as something seemed to occur to him. "Did no one ever tell you about what happened ten years ago?" he asked after a moment.

"Mother and Father defeated the Fell Dragon Grima with all of their friends and allies." Lucina said firmly. "Mother dealt the final blow and defeated Grima forever even though she knew she would die. She did it to keep a peaceful world for all of us. But because Father and everybody loved her so much she came back and Father found her again."

"Right. I remember that," the Other Morgan said quietly, though Lucina's Morgan looked both awed and horrified at the same time. "Worst two weeks of my life. Ever. But forget that. Did anyone ever tell you where some of us came from?"

Lucina shook her head. She knew that the Shepherds were made up from people of all walks of life and nationalities. Some were from Ylisse, Regna Ferox, Valm and even Plegia who had joined the Shepherds and that they had all had all sorts of adventures.

"I suppose the easiest way to explain it would be the way Lucina did it..." the Other Morgan said, putting a hand on her shoulder steering her in closer to him.

"Look at me Lucina and tell me who my father is."

Lucina stared into the the Other Morgan's dark brown eyes, unsure of what she was supposed to see when she saw it and froze.

"What?" she breathed as she saw the Mark of the Exalt in the Other Morgan's right eye, a mirror for the one in her left eye. The _exact _same mark Morgan had in _his _eye - that only those of House Ylisse carried in their bloodline.

"Put simply, a lot of us came from the future of a parallel world," the Other Morgan said. "Not that I really remember, though with some of the stories I've heard, I'm not sure I want to." He turned to her and smiled. "It's a lot to take in, I know."

"Wait," four-year old Morgan interjected, looking thoughtful, and peering into his alternate future-self's face, adaptable as ever and completely unperturbed by these revelations. "Owain and Cynthia are _right_! You ARE heroes from the future!" he said excitedly running off back into the castle to go and announce the exciting news to the Justice Cabal - even if it would probably involve hauling the other two excitable children from their beds.

Lucina's mind reeled with the revelation and it took a long moment before she found her tongue again.

"So she's _me_?"

The Other Morgan laughed a little at that.

"Ummm...sort of? It's complicated. Time travel's weird like that."

"Lucina is Lucina, and you're you."

"Father!" Lucina exclaimed in surprise as the man came over to the centre of the court yard, his eyes glancing towards a set of bushes and smiling ruefully at them before focusing on his daughter.

"You are your own person Lucina. You have your own life and your own memories. And Lucina has hers." He chuckled at the blank look she gave him. "Think of them like older siblings or cousins."

"Why did they come here?" Lucina asked suddenly feeling very small, young and frightened. Why? It was not to take her parents away from her - she knew that - but why? Why did the Other Lucina sometimes look at her parents with this desperate _longing _in her eyes? What was going to happen? What would happen that would make the Other Lucina - the future Lucina look so _sad _sometimes when she looked at her parents?

The Other Morgan shrugged. "I don't remember anything except for Mother. But the others..." he glanced towards Father, who sighed deeply before crouching down to look her in the eyes, placing a heavy warm hand on her shoulder.

"They came to change fate for you and the others, for all of us," he said quietly. "I guess you're old enough to know now. If Lucina and the others had not come from where they did, Aunt Emmeryn would not be alive, nor would Khan Basilio... Aunt Lissa, Frederick, and all the Shepherds would be dead. The only thing I'd be able to leave you would be one sword and a world full of trouble."

Lucina stared. Father _died_? But he was the strongest, the best - he and Mother defeated the Fell Dragon forever!

"In the future Lucina and the others came from, Robin and I never managed to defeat Grima - the world was lost. They came to give you and your friends a chance to have what they couldn't," Father smiled at her pulling her into a tight hug.

"You should not worry about these things Lucina. Its all in the past now. They changed everything for us. Daddy's here and I'm not leaving this time." He murmured into her hair as she cried and clung to him desperately, overcome with simply imagining what the Other Lucina must have lived through.

.

-0-

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The children take the news surprisingly well. Though many of them have become ever more so clingy and possessive of their parents. There is jealousy on all sides to be sure, but the most it ever came to was hair pulling on part of the Severas.

The children are so similar to the versions from that awful future and yet so very, very different from them that Robin worried that the names they had given them would become a weight around their necks - that there were expectations that came with the name - she also questioned what on earth had been going through her head when she had named her second child Morgan. In fact she questioned what all of them were thinking when they named their children - but that was neither here nor there.

Olivia had taken it upon herself to make this Inigo less of a flirt - boosting his confidence in other ways. The Inigo of this timeline was just as painfully shy as his mother - and his future counterpart - but it was more evident without the automatic flirting reflex. There is a confidence though in the boy however, in that he is unafraid to admit his dream of becoming a dancer. Not that it stops him from blushing furiously and hiding away from curious eyes to practice.

Maribelle tried to raise this Brady to become a gentleman - though she gives up easily enough once it becomes clear that like his future counterpart, success is short-lived and thoroughly creepy.

The 'Justice Cabal' took the whole thing exceedingly well and unfortunately took nearly every overly dramatic tale they heard as truth (except for Morgan, with whom Robin's word was still absolute). Robin, Lissa and Sumia nearly had a collective heart attack when the trio tried to re-enact Lucina's arrival from the future by jumping out of the highest tower in the castle, thanking every god there was (except for Grima of course) that Nowi was visiting and caught them before they could splatter themselves all over the courtyard. Their children are so similar to their alternate counterparts that there is little question that the Justice Cabal is going to turn out _exactly _like their predecessors. At least they'll have their parents around to sort of reign them in. Maybe.

Nah is still remarkably mature for her age though she is less serious and is shamelessly attached to her father - almost constantly at odds with her mother for his attention.

Having his parents in his life makes Gerome a little more approachable and willing to admit that he does get lonely - which is often - but since Gerome is and always has been easily embarassed, getting him to admit to anything is a trial in and of itself. He is the one who takes to treating the Other Gerome like an older sibling or cousin easiest. Minervykins declared him family - so family he was.

The Yarne of this timeline is practically a completely different person. Perhaps a reflection of what Yarne might have been like. Loud, and thoroughly unafraid of running into trouble - often getting stuck in places the Other Yarne would not have approached with a ten foot pole and an army behind him. This Yarne was an honorary member of the Justice Cabal and was always included in their escapades whenever he and his family visited Castle Ylisse.

Noire is the one in whom the difference is most pronounced. The Noire of the present timeline, while still a crybaby, has no real fear of curses or her mother's wrath, not with her father there to keep any and all experimentation to a minimum. There are no manic impassioned declarations of "BLOOD AND THUNDER!" or talismans - though it is evident that Noire has indeed inherited her mother's - sneaky and obsessive streak.

Kjelle takes the news as an expectation. She trains and practices doubly hard in order to live up to and surpass whatever bar the Other Kjelle has set.

Severa is quite easily the most conflicted - not sure whether to be jealous of her mother or her older alternate counterpart. She is also not sure who she hates being compared to more either - her 'perfect' mother or the other Severa who is equally perfect, but worse sometimes in that they have the same name.

Laurent... Laurent was exactly the same - since he has known about the Other Laurent's origins from the cradle. If there is a difference, it is that Laurent now has two goals to meet - to match both his mother's and his alternate counterpart's own intellectual standards.

Lucina grows up wise, beautiful and strong with her parents at her side. She is a little more likely to understand a joke, and at times will even make one herself. The weight of the sheer debt she owes the Other her is something that she makes a point to never forget - and expresses her gratitude each and every time she meets with her 'sister'.

-0-

"They'll be fine Robin." Chrom said coming to put an arm around his tactician and wife as she watched her children - all of her children - talk and play in the courtyard.

Both Lucina's are radiant - but the elder is positively glowing and there is an uncomfortable tightness in Robin's chest as she looks at the daughter that is hers but isn't if one were to get technical about it. She thinks of Lucina as hers, even if she is not the one that she carried for nine months and gave birth to.

"Don't give me that, you feel the same way about this as I do," she chuckled to which Chrom winced a little.

"I should never have recruited that boy," Chrom grumbled irritably. "Should have set some rules about relationships in the army."

"The company consists almost entirely of married couples Chrom," Robin remarked drily. "And you do know that we'll have to do this twice, right?" she said laughing as Chrom's grip tightened around her a little.

"I didn't expect to have to do this sort of thing for _years_. If he ever hurts her..."

"He won't." Robin cut in lightly. "He won't dare, because he'll have _us _to deal with." She paused. "He loves her Chrom. Don't worry and _don't _ruin this for her. Bad enough that you threatened to cut him to ribbons in front of the entire court..."

"I don't care that she's older than we were when we were married," Chrom interrupted. "She's our daughter and I want her to be happy."

"I know." Robin answered quietly as they looked at their children. All four of them turned to look in their direction and smiled.

"They will be. We made sure of that."

**END**

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So who are all the daddies in this story? Well that's a secret and so is whichever guy Lucina is marrying. I do have my preferences for pairings, some for the sheer hilarity of their supports and some for just how _adorable_ some of those supports were - and Robin/Chrom is one of them. Partially for the sheer OVERPOWERED Morgan you can get if you build your skill set right. Like Rightful King, Ignis, Galeforce, Counter and Armsthrift, with Veteran for grinding? Also for dramatic effect. Especially in Chapter 21. Lucina deserves so many hugs. And it makes an interesting family dynamic. With Lucina being a complete Daddy's girl and Morgan being a Momma's boy.


End file.
